On Monday night I went to Parc Des Princes to see Coldplay live (along with 50,000 other people). Wow that was just awesome!

The concert was in the Paris Parc des Princes open air stadium. It's probably the second biggest stadium in France and pretty neat. I was seated high up right under the roof. You can click on the picture here to get the map if you want.

The concert started with the Flaming Lips. I didn't know the band but was positively impressed when I saw them on stage. They had a pretty good stage set up and some good songs.

After them was the usual clean-up team. Except that one of the sweepers started doing a breakdance on stage and got the crowd pretty cheered up. I am not sure if that was set up or if it really was spontaneous. In any case it was great fun.

Then they came and they delivered a fantastic concert. I must admit I had been pretty heated up by a friend of mine so I didn't want to expect too much. But when they came on it was great fun.

I liked how it wasn't just Chris Martin that got all the attention but the drummer and guitarist also got a good share of the show.

After a few classics the team moved off to the smaller stage and played a very strange (but interesting) version of one of their latest songs I think it was Viva la Vida. That was great as they moved into the crowd on a smaller stage that was set up just for that song and got close up.

Then back to the main stage for more.

Suddenly they all walk off the stage, the lights are almost off. We're wondering WTF are they leaving already? We're only 1 1/2 hour into the show! Not they walk off the side and onto another small stage in the middle of the crowd! Wow. And played Billie Jean by MJ! Awesome. I found a recording here from someone who was pretty close:

And Chris Martin then asks (in French) for everyone to take out their mobiles (about 40,000 of them) and it lights up the stadium! So he gets the crowd to make an illuminated wave with the mobiles which gets everyone to go crazy.

And after that back on the stage for more classics.

The team is great, the sound quality was a little rough and I can say that a few friends of mine that had paid for "presidential" seats were sat on the bottom row, almost in the back so I was almost better seated for less money.

But it was a great concert and totally worth every minute. The music is awesome and a great mixture of pop and rock. To wrap up the night we went off to the Trocadero and had a Panache (beer and lemonade) on the square with view on the Eiffel Tower. It was just sublime.